1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to remote controlling device, program and system for controlling a device upon receiving a command from a user, and more particularly to remote controlling device, program and system capable of changing control commands depending on a control target device.
2. Description of the Related Art
In order for a user of a device to control the device located at a remote location, a remote controlling device has been used. For example, a remote controlling device for changing a channel of a TV (television) by utilizing infrared rays and a remote controlling device for setting a temperature setting of an air conditioner are widely utilized.
In recent years, due to the advance of a network such as the Internet, it has become possible to control a control target device such as a home electronic appliance that is located at home, from a visited site. In such a case, it is customary to provide a server device having a home gateway function inside the home, receive an operation instruction from the visited site at this server device, and then carry out control of a control target device such as TV or air conditioner by a command from this server device.
These control target devices can include various types of home use devices. Even when only the home electronic appliances are considered, many types of home electronic appliances are used in the home. Among them, if a TV and an air conditioner are taken up for example, it can be seen that the required functions are largely different. The TV has a major function of receiving the TV broadcast so that operations such as a channel selection and a volume adjustment are required, whereas the air conditioner requires operations such as a temperature setting adjustment and a starting or stopping control. In general, the required remote operations and the method for commanding them are different for different devices having different functions as such. Consequently, the remote controlling devices for operating these devices have been inevitably designed individually for different operation target devices.
Also, when the operation instruction for the control target device and a command corresponding to that operation instruction are simply transferred, there have been cases where a design of a dictionary in which words required for the speech recognition are described and the corresponding command do not coincide or a subtle discrepancy from the intended operation occurs. In such cases, there arise cases where the commands for the same operation instruction are defined differently for different devices. For example, in the case of entering the operation instruction by speech, if the common operation instruction such as “switch on” is adopted, it becomes necessary to provide a processing for selecting the appropriate command according to the control target device at each occasion, which makes the processing complicated.
Such a problem can be avoided if the remote controlling device is designed separately for each control target device, but then the manufacturing cost of the remote controlling devices would be increased, and there arises another problem for the user that it would become necessary to provide a plurality of remote controlling devices for different home electronic appliances.